Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Do we have further comments or questions? Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to the Nahendeh District, I see an increase of $310,000; is this because we got an LHO in Fort Liard or is this just forced growth? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I am sorry, what page were you looking on, Mr. Thompson? Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The increase to the Nahendeh District is actually $310,000. That is the modified SAFE Program for seniors. We will get Aging-in-Place, we will get $82,000 of that and they amortization increase is $228,000 for additional assets coming into service. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for her answer. So where is the cost for the LHO if this is a program in district operations in this budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The costs for the local housing organizations is on page 354, administration and maintenance. Currently we do not have them broken down by riding, but if the MLA would like we can provide that to him tomorrow as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. So this is for the Housing Corporation office not the local housing organization? Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was looking for the LHO and I apologize if it is on the wrong page. I am done questioning on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Nothing further. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The only comment I want to add maybe is relevant to CARE. I mean the Minister and the department are aware that Regular Members not only want to see the amount maintained but would like to see an increase in CARE, especially as it relates to the ability to support Aging-in-Place and allowing seniors and elders to stay in their home as long as they can.

Maybe consideration even of a senior-specific-type care program, but to the program itself, I mean, if we are identifying that some of the challenges are the uptake and that we are actually not delivering the money as expected, then maybe we have to look at the program itself and the parameters of the program. Maybe after accessing CARE, what is known as CARE Major, the parameters currently, I believe, say that you cannot access it again for 10 years; but if somebody is accessing it, you can almost be assured that that client is someone who would almost have other work that would need to be kind of done. There is a bit of a matching dollar program going on there. I mean the Housing Corporation does not pay for the project in full. The owner has to pay a particular portion of it.

So they themselves might only be able to afford to do so much of a renovation or an addition, or what have you, and then maybe in two, three years, four, five years from then they might be ready to do more. Putting them on hold for 10 maybe would be part of the problem or part of the challenges as to why the pot is not getting accessed as often as it possibly could, because I find it hard to believe that there is not enough clientele out there to access this pot.

So again, having the parameters around the accessibility of this pot reviewed might increase the uptake considerably.

The other aspect was what I suggested or commented on in my opening comments with regard to housing, was that we have to kind of give consideration to what other kind of regulations might be in place or problems that might be in place that don't allow somebody to be eligible for this program, or one that makes it just clearly obvious to them that they have to turn it down. The comment I suggested earlier was, in Yellowknife, the EnerGuide 80 standard that the city has in place, and what that affects.

If I am going to come to the Housing Corporation to get a rather large sum of money to go do a major renovation on my home, either to lower my cost of living because I am going to improve insulation factors or I am expanding for an expanding family or what have you, and it is so significant that now, all of a sudden, I have to fulfill a whole bunch of additional requirements that the city is going to put on me because of EnerGuide 80 standards or whatever other standards might be affected by this, then I am throwing my hands up in the air and, next thing you know, I am not accessing your pot of money anymore.

So I think there is considerable work that has to be put into those efforts to make this pot more accessible. I am just not comfortable with saying this is something that we have to just park and say it is not getting enough uptake. Any time I hear that, that means that there is something internally going on, not necessarily directly to the Housing Corporation. There are other outside factors. In this case, I believe that there are internal and external factors that are causing this pot not to get the right amount of uptake. We have to not wait for studies and what have you; this is something we have got to be responsive to because we know we could get this money out and have direct effects and it will have a positive effect on our goals as a government and as an Assembly as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In all honesty, since the time I have been a Minister -- I can't speak for the time before me -- I have had no one come to me and complain and say that they couldn't access the CARE major or any of our programs because your EnerGuide 80 is too high for them. I have never heard that complaint.

What I have heard, complaints for the CARE programs, is the co-payment, so I am not a hundred per cent sure. If people do come to me and say it is because they can't meet the energy efficiency, I would look at that, but that hasn't been my experience. It has been around the co-payments, the land tenure, and the insurance, so those are the areas that we are focusing on at this point, is how do we make it easier for people so that they can access the program by lowering the co-payment or eliminating it in certain cases, by perhaps rolling in the insurance and the land tenure into the money that we give them. If energy efficiency is a reason, at that point, if it does cross my desk as an issue, then I am more than willing to look at it and see how we can address that barrier as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Anything further, Mr. Vanthuyne?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I use it as an example along with land tenure, and you've referred to co-payment, so the point being it is just the whole identify the reasons as to why there is not enough uptake and let's start to address those so that we can successfully deliver. I hate to claw back from this pot when I just know that it is ready to be accessed by probably a number of people throughout the territory. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister, would you like to respond?

Thank you. I will take that as a comment. We are trying to address the issues. The other thing, too, is our communication. We do acknowledge that we are not the best about communicating and so we are looking at how to work that to get the word out to more people. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Anything further, Mr. Vanthuyne?

Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next, I have Mr. Nadli. My apologies, not Mr. Nadli. Any further comments or questions? Mr. McNeely.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not too sure if this was addressed here last year, but I have a feeling it was. Has the Housing Corporation ever looked at designing a self-insurance program? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you Mr. McNeely. Minister.

I will let Mr. Martin answer.